Reading Diary B: Brer Rabbit

Here are my favorites from the Brer Rabbit unit:

A Story about the Little Rabbits: This story reminded me of an Aesop fable that I read the first week of school. In the fable, a wolf tries to find (i.e. makes up) supposed slights made against him by a sheep so that he could eat him. In "A Story about the Little Rabbits," Brer Wolf tries to get Brer Rabbit's children to fail at tasks he asks them to complete so that he can have a "valid" reason to eat them. Thankfully, a little bird tells them how to complete the feats and then their father comes home. I like when I find similar stories throughout the different units that I read so it was awesome to find this connection between two very distant units (in terms of when and where they originated from).

Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Bear: This story should actually be called an UN-favorite because it made me really mad, but I wanted to rant about it. Brer Rabbit is a tricky character; he usually outsmarts the scheming Brer Fox in a comical way. However, this time I think he took it way too far. He was stealing peanuts from Brer Fox's garden and, when he gots caught, he tricks Brer B'ar into getting him out of the trap and putting himself in it. Not only that, then he brings Brer Fox to the trapped bear, tells him he was the one stealing from his garden, and then suggests he beat the bear with a stick. Not cool at all, Brer Rabbit. You could have just had Brer B'ar take you down and then run off. What did he ever do to you to deserve this fate? Nothing. Shame on you.

Brer Rabbit caught in Brer Fox's trap
(Illustration by A. B. Frost)

The Story of the Deluge: This story was very different from most of the other stories. It's not actually a Brer Rabbit story because the titular character doesn't make an appearance in it. Instead, it appears to take place somewhere in Africa. The big message I took away from it was "Don't step on those beneath you, just because they're beneath you. If they band together, they can be a force to reckon with." The elephant sees no problem with smashing the crawfish with his big feet. They eventually get fed up with it, so they and some other small, water animals make the place flood to show the big animal bullies that they're not going to take it anymore.

Plantation Proverbs: This was just a long list of proverbs, but I found a few that I thought were very thoughtful or funny. The first one was "Looks won't do ter split rails with." Basically, it's saying that good looks aren't very useful. Attractiveness is nice and all, but there are more important things. The second one was "Licker (liquor) talks mighty loud w'en it get loose fum (from) de jug." This is just a pretty accurate statement. Most people know what drunk calling and drunk texting is; you tend to say things you don't mean to when you've had too much to drink. The last one I really enjoyed was "Watch out w'en you'er (you're) gittin all you want. Fattenin' hogs ain't in luck." This is basically saying to beware of things that seem too good to be true because they probably are.